H-1B Amendments to the Immigration Law Do Not Pass Judiciary Committee

Posted on: May 20th, 2013

Last week I reported on a number of proposed changes to the H-1B visa rules that are part of the new immigration law proposal by the Gang of Eight.

The discussions were part of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s markup of the bill. Senators pitched several amendments, including positive ones such as from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) to increase the limit five-fold to 300,000, after he called the legislation as a “a step in the right direction” but not nearly enough even with the cap of 180,000 being “arbitrarily low.” However, this amendment was voted down 15-4 by the committee.
There were also amendments by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), calling to ease the extra requirements for H-1B employers this new bill would impose, saying the U.S. cannot supply enough skilled workers, but this also feel through.
So right now the original proposals is staying in the bill markup.